Snow Blind
by Caitiy
Summary: Sometimes a little isolation can be a good thing.


Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or the characters contained therein, they belong to Masashi Kishimoto who is kind enough to let fans write fiction. I make no profit from this nor do I intend to.

A/N: A bit of fluff I wrote after a conversation I had with my fantabulous beta AvidReaderAlso. :) Many thanks for the inspiration and your betaing services! :)

~*~*~*~

Snow Blind

Kakashi quietly cursed as the fire sputtered and went out – he had known that the wood was too wet to really hold a flame. Quickly, he pulled out some more kindling to try to manually relight the fire, all the while cursing the weather, the mission and the fact that his location was sensitive enough to prevent him from using a fire jutsu.

With many varied muttered oaths, he finally managed to get it going again. He stared into the flames, willing them to become brighter and stronger – bright and strong enough, that is, to allow him to go back to reading his book. It would be, he realized, his thirtieth time through the volume since the mission had begun – if he had known he would be stuck alone in this tiny shack in Snow for so long, he would have brought a couple of the other Icha Icha books to keep himself company. He sighed in annoyance and, putting his book down, pushed himself to his feet and ambled over to one of the small windows of his concealed, temporary home. He saw that it was snowing again, thick and hard, as it had been for the past few weeks. Absently, he had to guess that the snow was probably why the ANBU operative coming to relieve him was late… three weeks late to be precise.

Kakashi was getting tired of waiting.

Having no real outlet for his restlessness, he returned to his seat by the anemic fire. Once again, he tried to immerse himself in the dirty world of Icha Icha and forget about the fact that he was oh-so-slowly going stir crazy alone in the wilderness. He had things he should be doing, he thought irately – things back home – and he was more than frustrated that he had been taken from them in the middle of the night several months previous.

Just as he was about to put the book down (to start pacing for the second time that evening), Kakashi sensed someone approaching his little hideout. Stealthily, he moved back to the window with kunai in hand and his Sharingan uncovered; he peered through the glass, searching for some sort of clue as to who could be approaching in the foul snow storm. A moment later, a mostly indistinct shape emerged from the thick sheets of snow – as it neared, Kakashi could see that it was definitely human and, from its gait, a man. A couple steps brought the man closer and revealed black and gray clothing and a porcelain animal mask.

Still on guard against the person approaching (after all, just because he appeared to be an ANBU operative didn't mean that he would be), the Copy Ninja silently waited and watched. The unidentified man stopped before attempting to enter the hideout; forming a rapid chain of hand seals, he released the appropriate low-chakra jutsu combination to let the person on the inside know that he was there to relieve him of his duties. Then, having taken care of the necessary formality, the man hastily reached out, opened the now safe door and entered quickly to escape the cold and snow.

"Sorry, had a rough time getting though all the snow…" he started before realizing that the man he was talking to was impatiently waiting for him to move out of the doorway. "What, leaving so quickly with all that snow out there?"

"Yes. I'm late."

"Since when have _you_ been worried about being late?" the newcomer asked with a laugh.

Kakashi just stared at him evenly, still waiting for the man to move.

With some disbelief, the ANBU shook his head and tried another tack. "Are you crazy?" he asked. "You should at least stay until it stops snowing!" He waited for some sort of response from the legendarily stoic man. "What about the details of the mission? The information handoff, the mini debriefing…"

The silver haired shinobi sighed and nodded at a couple of scrolls neatly stacked on a rickety table. "Had plenty of time to write it all down for you – destroy them when you're done," he replied. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be on my way."

The man moved hastily, having noted an edge in the Copy Ninja's voice. "You're insane!" he called… once he had judged that Kakashi was far enough away not to hear his comments.

~*~*~*~

Quickly and quietly, Kakashi made his way back to the Village Hidden in the Leaves. The jonin found himself feeling unsettled. He had been pulled away from Konoha at a very inopportune time and now, to top things off, his return had been unavoidably delayed. Sure, he was always late… but he had never been quite as late as he would be this time and he honestly wasn't sure Sakura would even have been told the reason behind his long absence. It had been an ANBU mission after all, and it wasn't as though they were seriously dating or anything. Nevertheless, his time alone in that little shed in Snow had given him enough time to think and to regret not pursuing the matter with her further. He'd never particularly cared to label or define his previous relationships – mostly because they had been of the unimportant kind, undeserving of the sort of formality a label or definition would provide. But, now that he had been forced away from her for far longer than he had ever anticipated, Kakashi had discovered that he had come to appreciate the security and peace of mind such a label could bring.

Unfortunately, now that he was finally on his way back, he acknowledged that he wasn't sure what Sakura's status would be. Would she have even waited? Had she found someone else? Kakashi couldn't blame her if she had – he _had_ left her in the middle of the night without warning or explanation, and what they had started was barely more than friends with occasional benefits. In fact, he thought with more than a little regret, casual was a good word to describe their rather non-relationship. He couldn't expect to go back and have those same benefits or even to be afforded the same treatment he had finally allowed himself to accept from her.

He had been snow blind, he reflected grimly. She had dazzled him with her light, so much so that he had failed to look beyond the end of his nose and, because he hadn't, she was more than likely with someone else after his prolonged absence. Sakura was just too attractive and all around desirable to have managed to stay single for so long with him completely out of the picture, especially since he hadn't exactly left her on any sort of clear terms.

Sighing inwardly, he did his best to resign himself to the worst case scenario. When he arrived back in the village he would just have to patiently wait and hope that her attention would wander from her current beau and find its way back to him. Yet, despite his suspicions, a small part of him couldn't quite help but hope that maybe, just maybe, someone had seen fit to tell her that he had been called away on ABNU business, that he would be back in a couple of months, and that she had decided to wait for him to return.

But, even that ideal situation still left room for a lot of doubts.

To make matters worse for the troubled jonin, none of the other ANBU ops who had passed through the area of Snow he had been assigned to watch had brought him news of her, and he hadn't been able to bring himself to ask. For all he knew, she might even have gotten married – shinobi tended to move quickly when it came to something as important and potentially fleeting as marriage, since life always tended to be far too short to mess about with long engagement periods. Harshly, he pushed those thoughts aside as ridiculous, knowing that he was blowing it all out of proportion. As likely as it was for Sakura to have moved on, Kakashi highly doubted that she would have gone so far as to get married in his absence. The only person he knew who would be impulsive enough to do something like that was Naruto. Regardless, he managed to hasten his pace just a bit more.

~*~*~*~

After traveling nonstop for several long and bitterly cold days through a howling, fierce and freakishly huge snowstorm, the village gate finally loomed large in front of him. With renewed energy, Kakashi made right for it. As he was passing through the gates, he gave the chilled-looking jonin on duty a sympathetic nod, then set off toward his apartment. A few steps into the village, however, he suddenly found that he was unable to stop himself from heading directly for Sakura's flat instead.

Silently, the silver haired man cursed himself and his clear weakness for his former student. He justified his actions by reminding himself that he just wanted to see her before heading to his own place. It had been months, after all. His intention, he told himself firmly, was just to check on her and to make sure she was okay. He would seek her out properly the next day after making his report, and _then_ he would find out where things stood between them.

Upon reaching the kunoichi's apartment building, Kakashi dropped down to the branches of a tree across the street from her window. With some trepidation he looked inside to find her in bed asleep, as she should be. A sense of relief washed over him when he saw that she was alone, though he sternly reminded himself that did not mean that she hadn't moved on to better things while he was away.

He watched her sleep for a couple moments, more than aware that the longer he stayed the more likely it was that she would sense his presence. Yet, for whatever reason, he just couldn't bring himself to leave; his mind kept wandering down that familiar track of wondering if she had waited for him. Not knowing was just killing him – she obviously meant a lot more to him than he had realized. The minutes ticked slowly by and he finally gave in to the desire that had brought him to her window in the first place.

Stealthily, Kakashi hopped over to her window sill, made quick work of the lock and entered her bedroom. He knew that his actions had woken her since she had been asleep when he arrived and that she knew he was there. He waited for a moment, not entirely sure of what she might say to him – most likely, he thought, he was about to be yelled at for letting in the cold and then unceremoniously thrown back out onto the street.

Slowly, the seconds ticked by and he waited. Just when he thought he couldn't take it any longer, she shifted a little, almost as if in her sleep.

"You're late."

He smiled to himself as most of his worries melted away. She was angry, he could tell, but not nearly as angry as he had expected. Tsunade must have told her about the mission if she knew he was late, which would mean that she had probably gotten over him leaving her in the middle of the night. His worries had been mostly unfounded… that is, so long as he would be able to appease her.

Knowing that there really wasn't a response to her statement, he stayed quiet and hoped that she would give him some sort of clue as to what she expected him to do. Just because Sakura wasn't nearly as angry as she could have been, did _not_ mean that his presence was still welcome in her apartment, never mind her bedroom.

She sighed a little. "Don't just stand there, come to bed," she said as she stretched and shifted herself over a bit, making room for him. "'S'late, we'll discuss what you will be doing to make up for it in the morning."

He chuckled, knowing that she had probably been stewing over his late return while he was away and already had something in mind… and with her recent discovery of Icha Icha (at his behest), he was fairly certain that he would more than likely enjoy whatever that something was. He silently resolved that he wouldn't let her blind him again and that, in the morning (once he was told how he would properly compensate her for his prolonged absence), he would casually mention the idea of putting a label to their relationship and see how she would take it. He suspected the suggestion would be well received, since he had been the reluctant one before and she had been quite put out about it. At this point, Kakashi's mind unintentionally went back to just what he had had to do to make things up to her _that_ time and he was lost for a moment in the pleasant memory before snapping himself back into the present.

Deciding to test the waters a little, Kakashi put on his best pout as he shed his frozen ANBU gear. "Doesn't the fact that I came here non-stop through a full -on blizzard win me any points?" he asked as he carefully slipped under the covers, noticing as he did so that she had to make a concentrated effort not to try and squirm away from his cold body. Enjoying her warmth, he slipped his arms around the younger woman and pulled her closer, savoring the sensation of her warm, soft skin against his freezing and battle-scarred body.

She shifted herself in his arms so that she was facing him; then eyeing the older man sleepily, she brought a hand to rest on his bare cheek. "I know you did," she replied, giving him a slight smile. "And, that's why I'm letting you back into my bed tonight."

His eyes widened and she chuckled softly at his surprise. He quickly recovered, however, and pulled her a little closer. It would seem, a satisfied Kakashi thought, that he wouldn't need to bring up putting a name to their relationship after all. Sakura had known that, despite his protests to the contrary, he had wanted a more serious relationship and she had waited for him to come back and show her.

Kakashi sighed as he reflected on just how lucky he was to have someone like Sakura in his life – no, he corrected himself… as a major part of his life. He would have to show Sakura how much he cherished her… and a smile spread across his lips at the prospect.


End file.
